Crane: A Scarecrow Fan Fiction Chapter One
by Daniel Trump
Summary: Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow of legend, sits in a prison, Arkham Asylum. He wonders if this bland life is all there is to life - or if he can fight for something better for himself and stand up to the horrible people in charge of the world. He chooses to fight for a better life.


Crane: A Scarecrow Fan Fiction

by Daniel Trump

I write novels. I make money when you - the reader - buys one of my novels. I write fan fiction for free. If you like the fan fiction please buy my new novel, Impressions of Suburbia. Thank you so much. Here is the link:  dp/B07RPXPQPC \- it's a big, dangerous, fucked-up horror/slasher novel. Please check it out. Thanks.

Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow of legend, sat in his room in Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, and prepared his plan to escape and show the rich monsters in charge that everyone else wasn't okay with the status quo. He had a dozen books on scientific theory and half a dozen old fantasy epics lined up underneath his bed. His roommate, Oswald Cobblepot, snickered at the books and started to smoke a cigarette. He giggled.

"You read? I read. I study. I learn. You're not the only genius in Gotham City," Oswald said.

"I'm bright, not a genius," Crane said.

"You're a doctor who invents drugs," Oswald said. "It's great. You're great. Too bad we're stuck in here. Jesus. Locked up, no options, no being saved. The good guys lock us up if they win. We kill them if we win, and if we do, the public thinks that we are monsters."

"We are monsters," Crane said. He had no illusions that he was a hero - or the hero of any story. He worked for Ra's Al Ghul, trying to destroy Gotham City by poisoning the water supply. He terrified millions. He broke people - destroyed their minds and bodies, wrecking any chances that they would find peace or happiness. He had broken Rachel Dawes with his fear gas and made her into a terrified mess of a prosecutor who would be murdered by the Joker for being the girlfriend of a scary superhero psychopath named Harvey Dent.

"Right," Oswald said. "We're monsters. That's bullshit. We're people. Everyone has value, even us. Jesus. Monsters. Jesus."

Oswald sat there, fat and bloated, a little older, and looking sad and fat and old and broken and a little pathetic. To the criminals and the ambitious, though, he was a dealer of anything. If anyone was scared and desperate and needed something terrifying, no matter what, Oswald Cobblepot could find it for you - for a price. Oh, and the price, it was often terrifying. Crane couldn't believe that this titan - this god of supervillains - looked so old and sad and real and broken.

"We are monsters, but so are they," Crane said. "I don't know. I think that the Waynes of the world are rich and broken and don't care about the rest of us. They are the monsters, locking us up for being fucked up, throwing us away instead of caring for us."

"And the villains? Do we care for each other, Crane?" Cobblepot asked.

"I mean, the world is broken. It's a disaster, a place where one percent of the people get ninety-nine percent of the happiness and money. The world is a disaster, and everyone is afraid. I am afraid. That's why I study it. Fear. I want the happy and lazy rich people to suffer, to suffer the way that I suffer, to suffer for all the pain they inflict on everyone else. My life is mental illness and pain and strife. Why do they get the easy lives?"

"Right," Cobblepot said. "Fear. Everyone loves fear. You need to scare us. Why? Why do you need to scare us?"  
"Yes," Crane said. "We need to understand fear. We need to scare people. We need to figure out how to scare everyone who is holding us in this place, certain that we don't matter."

Otis Graves and Lex Luthor walked into the cell. "Ah, Jonathan Crane," Lex said. Lex Luthor looked bald and distinguished even in prison garb. Graves stood by him, ready to do anything for his boss. Anything. "An idiot, masquerading as an assassin. No offense, Crane. No offense meant. I don't mean - I mean, you're a smart guy. Talented. You were a doctor, man. Now look at you. Ranting at the moon for not bringing you breakfast."

"Fuck you," Crane said. "In charge of the prison yard, same as you used to rule a board room or a school yard. And I like breakfast, and I hate missing it. Nothing wrong with breakfast. We have to enjoy the little things. Fantasy novels, adult education classes, breakfast, taking walks in the sun. We have to understand that we mostly won't get out."

"That's right," Lex said. "I have a plan, a plan to end all plans. I will do something no one would expect me to do."

"What's that?" Crane asked. "Nuke New York to make money off of New Jersey?"

"No," Lex said.

"Kill billions for fun and profit?" Crane asked.

"Tempting, but no," Lex said. "I have saved the world. No plot, no mixup, no pretending, no manufacturing a reason. I saved the world. Darkseid planned to take over the Earth and make it a part of Apokolips. I stopped him."

"Great villainous plan, Lex," Crane said. "You saved the world. How terrible."

"You don't understand," Lex said. "They are letting me out. And when I get out, I will do terrible things to the world, terrible things, and they will say, thank you."

"Great, Lex," Crane said. "Great things, Lex."

Crane walked away from both of them. He couldn't handle any more of their bullshit and their egos. He walked over to an area where he could talk to the doctors.

"I want to talk about my release," Crane said.

The nurse looked up and frowned. "Yes?" she asked.

"When can I get out?" Crane asked. "I've been in here for, what, fifteen years. Poisoning the water supply. I think I've done enough time. I feel exhausted. I can't remember anything other than prison."

The nurse looked at the doctor, Leslie Thompkins. She walked over to Crane.

"I will convey your request to Batman," she said. "What do you want to say to him?"

"I've done fifteen years," Crane said. "That feels like longer than forever. I'm sorry for hurting people, I just want a life. I want out of here. I want out of this bland, boring life. I want something interesting to happen."

Prison was a place where nothing seemed to happen. He sat here, day after day, year after year, in a place without hope, without feeling, without chances. Outside had all the potential. Outside had something great - freedom. Crane wanted to leave the prison of Arkham. Crane wanted the walks in the forest and the movies with friends.

Leslie Thompkins looked at her device. "I'll ask him," she said. "I'll point out that you have seemed to try to regret some of your actions. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, have you played chess recently?" Crane and some of the other inmates had a chess league in Arkham.

"Yesh," Crane said. "I've won a couple games this week. Much better than before."

"Good," Doctor Thompkins said. "Good."

All day Crane thought about being released and second chances. He thought about the wargaming miniatures he would buy. He thought about hanging out with Edward Nigma and watching movies and doing some writing - writing about a broken, boring man living a life, making something of himself, maybe doing some nursing or volunteer work. He thought about the chances of a nice and happy life. He thought about making it as a doctor, helping people and standing up for himself and the outcasts and freaks of the world. He ate a salad for lunch and then lost a game of chess to Cobblepot and then read a couple chapters of a Robert Jordan fantasy epic.

Doctor Thompkins reached Crane around dinner. She walked into his cell and frowned. "Batman wishes to clarify that he will never let you out. At the end of time he will weigh whether or not you have done enough time. That is all." She walked away and laughed as she walked away. "Let out Scarecrow. What a joke. The shit I put up with."

Crane died inside. He didn't understand. He sat there, and his mind wandered. He dreamed of being on a planet far away, being someone else, someone heroic, someone popular. He knew that the League of Shadows could be an ally. He had worked for them for years before being caught by Batman. Batman! He hated the Dark Knight for being innocent and good and pure. Why couldn't he be that? Why couldn't he be the hero Gotham deserves?

Crane sent a message to the League of Shadows asking for them to get him out of this place, soon. He sent the message on a computer which allowed only email and educational programs. He listened to classic rock on the radio, sitting at a table with two old men who didn't talk to him.

Someone walked into the room. He wore a black suit of armor and had a bat-symbol on his chest. Batman walked into the room, walked straight up to the Joker, and said, "Free."

The Joker looked at Batman and laughed. "What, why? I mean, thank you for your concern, but why me?"

"You've done a good amount of time. That's good. I want to give you another chance, Joker. I want to free you and see if you can do your thing without all the murder."

The Joker and Batman walked out of prison together, talking about crime and criminality.

Crane laughed. The Joker got a second chance, but not the Scarecrow.

He decided to take a chance. For the first time in fifteen years of captivity Crane tried to escape from Arkham Asylum.

He remembered a little magic from his training from China, in the distant mountains. He had trained in the bottom row, way beneath Bruce Wayne and Ra's Al Ghul and the important people. Crane remembered a spell which would create a portal to his home and mark it as a safe haven - free from prying eyes. He thought about the portal opening.

The portal appeared in front of him, leading home. The portal appeared as an inky darkness leading up some stairs into a darkness above him. This was something above him, above everyone, and he walked up the stairs to the darkness above him. He turned and looked down and saw a bright light, a white light representing all the rules and regulations invented by scared people who feared him and wanted to kill him. He walked up to the upstairs of his old town home and closed the portal, permanently destroying the light below him. He walked through, trying to make it to his home and out of the horrible insane asylum. He wanted to move through that dark circle and up past the bottom recesses of the insane asylum and up into the skyscrapers of Gotham City.

He looked out from his view on the penthouse in a tower at the height of Gotham City, within a block of Wayne Industries. He looked at the town - Wayne's city. Bruce Wayne was the most important person in Gotham City, and the Scarecrow? Considered a nobody, a crazy person, a villain not worth a second thought. Crane started to look at his computer and see what was happening with heroes and villains. He would always remember that none of them would let him out, give him a second chance, educate him to be a better person. He didn't learn anything from fifteen years in a cell. People hated the mentally ill criminals who shot up places and hated people and were stupid villains who always got caught right when they started to kill people. A manhunt for the Scarecrow wasn't announced - they didn't realize that he wasn't there yet. He smiled and cast a second spell, a spell that created a fake Dr. Crane to sit in his cell.


End file.
